Person · 1966

Thomas M. Glavine

Born	1966-03-25 Concord, Massachusetts

Thomas Michael "Tom" Glavine, a left-handed pitcher who won 305 games in the major leagues and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2014, grew up in Billerica. He was born in Concord, Massachusetts, on March 25, 1966, the son of Fred and Millie Glavine. His father worked in construction all his life, ran his own company, Fred Glavine Construction, and built the family home in Billerica.

At Billerica Memorial High School he played hockey and baseball for four years. The 1982 Warrior yearbook names the sophomore Tom "Silk" Glavine on the varsity hockey team, and as a senior he was co-captain of the hockey team, a center who was named the most valuable player of the Merrimack Valley Conference. In baseball he helped the team win the Division I North title and the Eastern Massachusetts championship in 1983, his junior year. He was also an honor student and a member of the National Honor Society, and he graduated with the class of 1984. In June 1984 the Atlanta Braves chose him in the second round of the major league draft, 47th overall, and a few days later the Los Angeles Kings chose him in the fourth round of the National Hockey League draft, 69th overall, ahead of Brett Hull and Luc Robitaille. He turned down a hockey scholarship to the University of Lowell and signed with the Braves.

He made his major league debut for Atlanta on August 17, 1987, at the Astrodome in Houston. He pitched for the Braves from 1987 to 2002, for the New York Mets from 2003 to 2007, and for the Braves again in 2008. He won the National League Cy Young Award in 1991 and 1998, won twenty or more games five times (1991, 1992, 1993, 1998 and 2000), was named to ten All-Star teams and won four Silver Slugger Awards. In the 1995 World Series he won Games 2 and 6 against the Cleveland Indians, giving up one hit in eight innings in the deciding game, and was named the Series' Most Valuable Player. His younger brother Mike Glavine, also born in Concord and later a first baseman at Northeastern University, was called up by the Mets in September 2003 and played six games for the team. Tom Glavine pitched his last game on August 14, 2008, and announced his retirement on February 11, 2010. He finished with 305 wins, 203 losses, a 3.54 earned run average and 2,607 strikeouts. The Braves retired his number 47 and inducted him into the Braves Hall of Fame on August 6, 2010. In the first year he was eligible, 2014, the baseball writers elected him to the National Baseball Hall of Fame with 525 of 571 votes (91.9 percent), and he was inducted at Cooperstown on July 27, 2014.

The town followed his career closely. At the fall Town Meeting of 1989 a warrant article asked the town to send "Town resident, Thomas Glavine" a letter of congratulations "for his success as a starting pitcher for the Major League's Atlanta Braves," and the meeting voted it on October 19, 1989. On October 8, 1991, the eve of the National League playoffs, Selectman Doyle paid tribute at town meeting to "Billerica's own Tom Glavine who won 20 games this year for the Atlanta Braves baseball team with an E.R.A. of 2.55," and promised him a citation from the Board of Selectmen on behalf of the citizens of the town. That year he gave two autographed baseballs to the annual TV-A-Thon that funded the town's holiday gift program for children, and in October 1992 town meeting resolved to send him a telegram wishing him well in his playoff game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. He was elected to the Billerica Memorial and Howe High School Athletic Hall of Fame in 1993. In 1997 the town's Arts Council arranged the unveiling of a painting of him by Sheila Folley, and in July 2014 the Recreation Department took about 100 residents and friends to Cooperstown "to witness the induction of Billerica's own Tommy Glavine into the Baseball Hall of Fame." The drive beside the Town Hall that leads to the high school grounds is known as Tom Glavine Way.

Thomas M. Glavine

Thomas M. Glavine

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